Evidence for a binary origin of a central compact object

Victor Doroshenko, Gerd Puehlhofer, Patrick Kavanagh, Andrea Santangelo, Valery Suleimanov, Dmitry Klochkov

Published 2015-08-14Version 1

Central compact objects are thought to be young thermally emitting isolated neutron stars that were born during the preceding core-collapse supernova explosion. Here we present the first evidence that at least in one case the neutron star must have formed within a binary system. The former stellar companion, surrounded by a dust shell with an estimated mass of $\sim0.4-1.5M_\odot$ , is going through the final stages of its own evolution as a post-asymptotic giant branch star. We argue that accretion of matter supplied by the companion soon after the supernova explosion is likely responsible for dampening of the magnetic field of the central compact object to its presently low value.